Catching up after my vacation, Part II

It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been back to work for two weeks after my vacation. I’ve kept busy taking photos since I’ve been back, maybe too busy.

This post will be mostly flowers again, but there will be a few birds from time to time, so I’ll start out with one of them, a chipping sparrow.

Chipping sparrow

The next few need no words other than the captions.

Blackberry flower

Oak leaves

Butterfly

Turkey

Turkey

Daisy

Blackberry flower

Wild rose

Damselfly

Dragonfly

Young woodchuck

So far, all the photos in this post were taken with the 300 mm lens with 1.4 X extender. But these next few were shot with the Beast (Sigma 150-500 mm lens). I have included the first four, of a pair of mallards for two reasons. One, I was surprised how well the Beast did in the extremely low light as the female mallard splashed about. And two, the male never moved, he didn’t even blink as the water hit him.

By the way, I’m naming those two Jack and Diane, from the John Mellencamp song that includes the lyrics, “two American kids doing the best they can”. I see these two nearly every day, in the same area.

Female mallard bathing

Female mallard bathing

Female mallard bathing

Female mallard bathing

Here’s Bertha the red-tailed hawk checking me out.

Red-tailed hawk in flight

And a few more birds from the Beast, which I used on the body that had been the landscape body until I found that the 300 mm lens worked much better on it than the body I had been using for birds and wildlife.

Male red-winged blackbird

American robin singing

Male northern cardinal singing

Back to the 300 mm lens for a few flowers.

Yellow hawkweed

Toad

Here are two photos that aren’t great, but I’m proud of them anyway.

Eastern chipmunk

Chipmunks don’t run very fast, but they go from zero to full speed instantly, and stop just as quickly. I consider it an accomplishment to get any photo of one moving.

Eastern chipmunk

I probably shouldn’t have included the next one, but I love the deep green of the trees in early summer, and as a note, I went down 2 full stops for this photo to get the green correct.

Green

A few roses.

Wild rose

Wild rose

When I expose correctly for the roses, the bees, if present, are under exposed. If I expose the bees correctly, the rose is over exposed. I know, I should post-process, but I’m not ready to take that step yet.

Wild rose and bee

Wild rose

???

Orange hawkweed

Orange hawkweed

???

Atlantic blue-eyed grass

White campion

???

I shot this next one intending to crop down on the bee, but I liked the photo full size.

Goat’s beard

Good thing that I shot two so I could crop down on the bee. 😉

Goat’s beard and bee

Highbush cranberry flowers

Tulips

I’m getting closer to being caught up in my postings, I have a few photos left from around home, a few from a visit to Lost Lake in Muskegon State Park, and a few from an afternoon that I spent at Reed’s Lake, near where I live, yet to go.

I love the shots of the oak leaves and the woodchuck. I’m not sure what the blue/purple flowers are but the yellow one after the orange hawkweed looks like sulfur cinquefoil.
A friend caught a chipmunk bare handed once when we were in high school and spent quite a while afterwards wishing he hadn’t.

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